Originally Posted by
Extenda
Buck I think a lot of us in the thread are kind of talking past eachother.
I don’t think that any of us, liberal or conservative, are “pro-government waste”.
Anyone at a legacy airline, as a W2 earner in the top tax bracket, shoulders a huge percentage of the federal tax burden (as an aggregate).
Everyone wants to cut down on waste. Nobody likes the government wasting our tax dollars.
I think the issue is essentially, is it ok for Elon Musk to single-handedly just chop this stuff with minimal government oversight? He’s also throwing out all these numbers regarding how much has been saved by his approach? how real are they? Does it matter?
The main issue, to me, is that this is congresses entire job. Article 1 of the constitution. You either believe in the constitution or you don’t. We need to hold our congressional representatives accountable for creating, funding and holding accountable all these 3 letter agencies.
what do you think? I get that it *feels* good to see someone finally coming in with the chainsaw to chop up this massive behemoth of a bureaucracy, but do you have any reservations on the why/how/what?
I think that's an oversimplification. Musk appeared to be doing things semi-autonomously for the first few weeks. Because while we elect a President in November and wait to inaugurate him in January we also wait until inauguration to start confirming the cabinet. So for several weeks there was only Musk and a bunch of temporary custodians. Now that all the major departments have a real head I see Musk making noise and certainly visiting agencies and rooting around in the payment systems but not making decisions. The HHS personnel changes seem to be coming from RFK for example.
Congressional leadership seems onboard with producing a budget that actually spends less than last year. Let's see what they come up with. I don't particularly like the chaos but I remain cautiously optimistic that some good will come out of it.
I've watched Musk in several long form interviews. I agree that he probably doesn't like the FAA constantly interfering with his rockets but his understanding of the unsustainability of our fiscal situation and his desire to correct it seem genuine. Vilifying him is sophomoric.